The Way Things Used to Be
by Frost Hobbit
Summary: Shannon reflects on her relationship with Boone from the day they met until the flashbacks in Hearts and Minds. She wonders when everything changed.


**A/N So...I decided to write a Shoone fanfic. Why? I dunno. I miss Shannon and Boone. **

**Title: The Way Things Used to Be**

**Rating: PG-13 for innuendos.**

**Summary: Shannon reflects on her relationship with Boone from the day they met up until the flashbacks from Hearts and Minds. Mostly Shannon POV, but a little of Boone as well.**

Shannon had always known that Boone was in love with her.

She first met him when she was eight years old. He had been ten. Boone's mother Sabrina was bringing him over to meet Adam and Shannon, since she'd been dating Adam for awhile and the two had decided it was time for their kids to meet. She remembered watching out the window and seeing him come up the sidewalk, trailing behind his mother, apparently in an attempt to show that he was following her because he wanted to and not because she told him to.

He remembered when the little blond girl had thrown open the front door and given him and his mother a bright smile and a loud "Hi!" Shannon had been bubbly and outgoing even then.

Sabrina had smiled and said hi back. This was before mutual dislike had grown between the two.

Boone didn't respond right away. Shannon remembered that she hadn't understood why, not at the time. She had never met a _boy_ who was shy. She stepped up to him and peered into his face. "Can't you talk?" she'd asked. "What's your name again? My name's Shannon."

"Hi, Shannon," Boone finally answered. "I'm Boone."

"Hi, Boone! Want to see my room?" Shannon took Boone by the hand and led him into the house, past her father (adding over her shoulder, "We're going to go play, Daddy!"), and up the stairs into her bedroom.

Boone remembered being disgusted at how pink her room was. No self-respecting boy could ever be caught dead in a room like this! Self-consciously, he sat cross-legged on the floor and glanced around. "What are those?" he asked, pointing.

Shannon's eyes lit up. "Those are my ballet slippers! Want to see me dance?" Again, Shannon did not wait for an answer. She picked up the shoes and started out of her room. "Come on!" she ordered over her shoulder. "I need more room to dance. And I need a better audience!" Even at age eight, Shannon had craved attention.

Shannon ran into the living room, where Sabrina and Adam sat, talking. Without waiting for an invitation, she pulled on the ballet slippers and performed a short dance for her audience of three. When she finished, Adam and Sabrina clapped politely while Shannon curtsied. Boone was standing in the doorway quietly. "You're _supposed_ to clap," Shannon informed him. At her word, Boone clapped a few times and then dropped his hands.

Shannon knew she had much to teach him.

Soon afterward, Sabrina and Adam were married and Boone moved into Shannon's house with his mother. Shannon was thrilled. She now had someone to boss around on a daily basis _and_ a big brother to watch out for her. She had friends who never, ever got picked on at school because they had brothers who would punch anyone who messed with their sister. Now Shannon could threaten to tell her brother whenever she was picked on.

Shannon soon discovered Boone wasn't the most intimidating brother on the planet.

"Boone, Ricky was making fun of me today," she whined to him one day when she was nine and he eleven.

"Who's Ricky?" Boone was instantly alert.

"That kid over there." She pointed across the schoolyard to where Ricky was playing soccer with his friends. "He's in _fifth grade_. You're in sixth. Will you beat him up, Boone?"

Boone went to talk to Ricky. He came back with a fat lip.

"What happened, Boone?" Shannon wanted to know. "Did you hit him for me?"

"Not exactly," he mumbled. "Don't worry about it."

As the years passed, Shannon had to admit she loved the attention Boone lavished on her. Sabrina hated her, she soon came to realize - and while her father loved her dearly, he wasn't always around. So Shannon learned to take advantage of Boone's affection.

"Boone." Shannon slipped into his room one evening. "I need to borrow ten dollars."

"What for?" he groaned, rolling his eyes.

"I'm going to the movies with some friends. I'll pay you back. Just ten dollars?"

"Shan..."

"Oh, come on, Boone." She sat down next to him on his bed and put her hand on his. "Please? I _promise_ I'll pay you back."

Boone's eyes darted from her face to her hand, then back up her body until he met her eyes and nodded. "Okay, fine. Just this once."

Shannon gave him a broad smile. "Thank you, Boone!"

Only it never was "just this once."

Shannon sometimes felt a little awkward around Boone, especially as they got older. It was uncomfortable, living with your stepbrother who just happened to be in love with you. When Shannon was fifteen, she went through a phase of such paranoia about him that she took to locking her bedroom door every night, and checking and double-checking that the lock on the bathroom door was working before she took a shower. She wondered if Boone ever noticed this.

Boone did notice, and remembered it in the years to come with some amusement. "Watch out, Shannon," he called one night as Shannon was getting ready for bed. "Make sure your door's locked. You never known when some creep's going to sneak into the house and go for your bedroom."

Shannon shot him a look so venomous he would have been dead on the spot if looks could kill.

He didn't know he was the reason Shannon was locking her door. He thought she was just plain paranoid.

He didn't know Shannon knew he was in love with her.

When she was sixteen, Adam, Sabrina, and Boone came to one of her dance recitals. Shannon knew that Sabrina only came because Adam wanted her to - she had long ago stopped striving for Sabrina's approval. So she danced for her father and for Boone, and performed her solo number as perfectly as she could, knowing Boone's eyes never once left her.

In the car on the way home after the recital, Shannon was bursting to tell them the praise her instructor had given her.

"She said she wants me to help out with the younger kids over the summer because she really thinks I can teach them a lot! And Dad - she says when I'm eighteen I should apply for an internship in New York because I have a shot at making it! And - "

"Shannon," Sabrina interrupted cuttingly. "Can you stop talking for five minutes?"

Shannon, shocked and let down, closed her mouth, her happy smile vanishing. She slumped down her her seat and folded her arms, scowling.

Boone leaned over to her. "I think that's awesome, Shannon," he whispered, his breath tickling her ear. "I think you'd be great. You were amazing tonight."

Shannon's lips twitched up into a tiny smile. "Thanks, Boone," she whispered back.

Boone had always been there for her.

Who would have guessed where they'd end up?

Shannon's life had spiraled downward in the two years since her father had died. She had gotten her internship - but Sabrina had refused to give her her inheritance from her father, and Boone left New York to work for his mother. Shannon felt betrayed. The person - the _one person - _she had been able to count on for twelve years had decided a "really good job" was more important than she was.

Shannon wondered if he'd stopped loving her.

She wanted to get back at him. She wanted him to know what it was like to be betrayed - Boone, the person who'd had everything handed to him on a silver platter all his life - she wanted to show him a taste of what she'd been through, while conveniently getting her money at the same time.

The first time was easy - she made friends with a guy, told him about how she'd never gotten her money, and together they came up with a plan. Shannon knew Boone - she called him one day, pretending to cry, and made it seem like she was being abused by her boyfriend. Boone, as Shannon had known he would, came and paid her boyfriend to break up with her. Her friend then gave her the money.

The first time was so easy. So Shannon did it again. And again and again. It worked every time.

Until Brian had to mess up her life, and her perfect plan. Brian told Boone everything.

Boone could not remember ever being more angry or humiliated in his life. Was this what he was? Was he just a stupid, naive, rich guy who had no idea how things worked in the real world. The answer, of course, was a resounding _yes_. Boone stormed out of the house, swearing he would never see Shannon again.

Good luck with that.

Shannon came to his hotel room that night after Brian took the money Boone had given him. Her plan had backfired...and as she expected, Boone was rather pleased about it. "So the player got played," he said to her. "Kind of poetic, don't you think?"

Shannon knew there was one way to get him to at least take her back home. It took all her courage to do it. But Shannon had always had courage.

And it wasn't as if Shannon had ever had trouble seducing men. Especially if they'd been in love with her for twelve years.

Even if they did happen to be her stepbrother.

Afterwards Shannon curled up in a ball in the armchair. She hated herself. Boone loved her - she knew he did, she'd always known. But she did not love him - not the way he loved her. She couldn't stand what she'd done to him and to herself. She flipped on the light. "Boone?"

He was laying on his stomach on the bed, not looking at her.

"When we get back to L.A," she began, "just tell your mom you rescued me like you always do. Then we can go back to how it was..." Shannon meant that they could go back to the way things were before their lives turned upside down - the way things were before her father had died.

"What?"

"You know...how things used to be." _The way they were when we were young! When we were friends and talked about everything! When we could talk and laugh and have fun together, before everything came between us! __**The way things were before my dad died! **_Shannon's brain screamed at her to tell him, but Shannon didn't – couldn't - say it out loud.

Boone didn't understand that that was what she meant. "Like it's all up to you," he mumbled.

Shannon's shoulders slumped. After this - after tonight, after _everything_ - nothing could go back.

**A/N Well, I hope you enjoyed my first Lost oneshot - the first thing I've written for Lost other than Hidden. Reviews are appreciated - I'd love to have some feedback on how I did!**


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